3 am.

My body loves the silence that surrounds me. The smell of the candle I chose. The taste of the drink I made. The feeling of the warm clothing I wear in the chill air. The dim and comforting light that comes from a lamp, a candle, and my dimmed screens as I write. 

There feels like so much space here. I can take in one thing at a time. I’m not rushed. I’m not forced to perceive everything at once. The surroundings are calm and it allows me to embody that same calm. I don’t have to attend to everything at once. I am regulated in a way that I can’t seem to find during the day. 

I hope that I am able to expand this peace in my body into the rest of my day. I hope that my body is able to find and reconnect to the memory of this moment… this moment that allowed me to attend to one thing at a time. This connection to Awareness. 

I can feel the force that enlivens me. I can sit with it. It doesn’t have much to say, but the Unconditional Love is something that I can feel. It goes beyond comprehension and the physical senses. Nothing lasting is created or exists for long besides that which is created with and through Unconditional Love. That includes me. To say I feel lucky is an understatement. 

The shadows used to scare me. They don’t anymore. The silence used to scare me. It doesn’t anymore. The lack of over-stimulation used to scare me because of its absence, because it forced me to sit with myself. If listening to all of my survival ego chatter, it’s terrifying. But with the peace of this moment, the support of what’s necessary, I’m able to calm the fear and get to the core below it. I can drop into myself and know that I am safe and I am held. I don’t have to hold my physical self in tension against the world. I can relax. I can be both my body and the force that enlivens it.